British Association for American Studies Annual Conference

Literary Responses to the Death Penalty: Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying and Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking

The death penalty has served as a court-sanctioned form of revenge in the name of justice. After hearing the case and pronouncing the sentence, the court demonstrates the power of the state over marginal others, legitimizing certain forms of gruesome violence, such as death by electrocution. The convicted are considered enemies of society or “others” who can be eliminated without retribution or guilt, inasmuch as the courts pass sentences on the guilty or seemingly guilty and merely uphold the law. This actual carrying out of the sentence takes place, apart from a few witnesses, behind closed doors.

Writers such as Ernest J. Gaines and Sister Helen Prejean have taken it upon themselves to put the death penalty, as well as the American judicial system and society on trial. By covering the death penalty from the court room to the death chamber, they seek to put the death penalty back into the public eye. Moreover, their works question the morality of a system which puts people to death who are innocent, poor, victims of racism, and/or have not been adequately defended in court. Apart from discussing these issues, this investigation will look at the techniques each author uses to create immediacy and relevance to American society.